


A Knife, Baby, Edgy and Dull

by bwbachpumpkin



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/M, Female Runner Five, Sam and Runner 5 are not good at dealing with sexual tension, Set vaguely somewhere in season 2, Simon lives to provoke, mention of zombies row
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-21 21:28:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30028113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwbachpumpkin/pseuds/bwbachpumpkin
Summary: Simon is the first person Five has seen actually give a devious smirk. Maxine just wants Sam to be happy. Sam resents summer dresses, and his great and unending suffering. Eugene needs a cable. Jody just wants to follow Shania and feel like a woman. Five likes to be told what to do. It's fine, okay?
Relationships: Runner Five/Sam Yao
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	A Knife, Baby, Edgy and Dull

**Author's Note:**

> it is lockdown and i am suffering and am very confused whether or not sam is actually runner five's boyfriend because he saves them chocolate biscuits and i've been listening to a lot of bruce springsteen, so i really cannot be held responsible

‘Yes – yes, under that tree branch,’ Sam’s voice was excited, as if he was watching some fast-paced Bond film or cheering on a party member after a particularly successful D&D roll. He’d always be like this, breathless, when it was only slow (relatively, anyway) zoms on the chase. It was only by rare misfortune that those ones could catch up to the runners, now that they’d been put through their paces on the approximately three million runs they’d been on since the apocalypse came crashing down on the world. Sam let down his guard a bit when it was only a slow zom or two.

He was even more relaxed when it was a Friday run, looser as the runners came in and the day came closer to an end. _Especially_ every other Friday, when Jack or one of the others took over comms for the evening and he, Janine and some of the runners had the evening off for ‘leisure time’. _Very important, leisure time._ The Major said. _Keeps up morale._ Sam was getting into it, as Three and Five came closer to finishing up, more prone to laughter, to more and more aimless chatter. Three was the same, but he was always loosey-goosey anyway, and the prospect of a little tequila only made him wilder on the runs. Sam, though, you could always tell it was an every-other Friday when he started inhaling and making comments under his breath like he was watching a football match. He liked to see the fancy stuff, the ducks and dives and dips and dodges and the quick footwork. He still took it seriously, but he always seemed to be having a bit more fun when these sorts of missions came around. Five obligingly skidded a bit, limbo-ing under the branch with elegance and speed, pleased to hear Sam’s impressed exhalation, before she was hit square on the forehead with a crab apple hanging from an off-branching twig.

‘Talk about low-hanging fruit, right, Five?’ Simon laughed, loud and obnoxiously good-hearted, grabbing a half-rotten one from the other side of the trunk and pelting it roughly in Five’s direction, but with enough leeway to miss her.

‘Oh, bugger off, Simon,’ Five muttered, breath coming fast as they both fell back onto the even ground of the forest path. It was much easier to run here, and the exertion of duck-dip-dive-dodging had caught up a bit, so she slowed down to a more manageable pace.

‘Language, Five, we haven’t hit the watershed yet,’ Simon intoned, squinting up at the fast-lowering sun. The evening was quickly settling in, and the air around them was clean, dusk-soft and sweet with the scent of the dewy trees. The backpack full of carbine-magazines and extra bullets banged painfully against her shoulders, but she was nearly home (in the past weeks and months Abel had become home, really. Nowhere else fit the description like it) and nearly about to have an evening of drinking and laughter and the sky was purpling and gentle around them. The pain was relatively easy to ignore, when all that was factored in.

‘Sorry, Simon. Would _fuck off_ be more acceptable to your delicate ears?’ She shot a grin over at him to show she wasn’t truly annoyed, just bantering, and sped up, the smile widening as he swore lightly under his breath and increased his pace to meet her.

‘Alright, no crab-apple pelting. Strange one, you, Five, still figuring out your likes and dislikes.’ His grin turned a bit more lecherous. ‘Or your turn-ons and your turn-offs, if you will.’

‘Runner Three!’ Sam spluttered through the headset, with enough incredulity that Simon turned down the volume on the side of his and winced with the noise. Five could picture his face clearly, the pinkish blush, the furrowed eyebrows. ‘Runner Five’s turn-ons are hers to know, and yours to… well yours to bloody well stay out of!’

‘S’alright, Sam, I can defend myself from this joker.’ She laughed. The forest was bustling and alive around them, and she saw a fast, reddish little squirrel scarper up a nearby birch and gaze curiously at them as they jogged past. She loved the early evening runs, just before it got too dark.

‘Still! He shouldn’t be talking about…’

‘About what gets Runner Five going, is it Sam? Is that what I shouldn’t be talking about?’ Simon grinned at the road ahead, viciously enjoying Sam’s embarrassment.

Five thought she should probably stop it, but she was too boneless and too relaxed from the hard run, and too concerned with trying to keep enough concentration on the ground to avoid tripping over a grown-out tree root or two to care too much. She always liked it when Sam got a bit flustered like this, and with the way Janine and Simon were ‘sneaking around’ (read: pathetically trying to keep it a secret from everyone that there was something happening there, whilst also holding hands under the mess-hall benches at dinner time. Honestly, it did make Five worry about the privacy of their radio channels, if that was Janine’s idea of secrecy) she wasn’t worried that Three was making a move. She was content to tune out Sam and Simon’s good-natured bickering, even if it was at her expense, focusing largely on the calming, rhythmic footfalls of the two on the path.

‘Yes, Three. That is what you shouldn’t be talking about. Left at the fork up ahead, and then straight out of the forest. Only about ten minutes back to Abel, if you cut through the rapeseed fields. Be quite the pretty sight, all that yellow in that sunlight. Try to get back before the dark, though, so not too much lolling in the summer sun.’ 

Sam was over-talking, the way he always did when he wanted Simon to leave something alone. 

Five cast a quick glance back at Simon as the fork approached and saw a positively devious smirk cross his face. Five was a big reader, both pre-and-post apocalypse (with whatever she could get her hands on from raids, that is. Her copy of Persuasion was practically falling apart at the seams) and she’d read that phrase a lot, devious smirk, but she’d never actually seen the expression till now. That was deviousness, there it was, written all over Three’s face. Oh, fuck.

‘Why should I not be talking about them, Sam? Afraid you’ll get a bit too distracted behind the comms desk?’ There was that laugh again, and with anyone other than Sam, Five would have been laughing right along with him. It was funny, the way all sex jokes between friends are, because you were friends. Even the thought of sex between you was funny, because it would be outlandish and never happen, and thus hilarious in its absurdity. If someone had made that joke about Three instead of Sam getting over-interested in Five’s predilections, she knew she would have had something at the ready, something like ‘Yeah, well, Simon, even the biggest turn on is a turn off when it comes from a git like you,’ and it would have been just that. Funny.

But Sam. The thought of Sam ‘too’ interested in her, distracted by her. That. The things that she liked, that way. Which spots to touch, whether she liked tying up or being tied up, all those things that though she was comfortable thinking about in the semi-privacy of her Abel bunk, but not so comfortable thinking about next to Simon on a run. Maybe the things she liked out of bed, too, like the pet names she liked (and didn’t like) to be called. Or what colours she thought were nice in a room, or which flowers were her favourite, or whether she was big or little spoon (little). _Fucking stop, idiot._ That way lay madness.

And in front of them lay madness too, so she dove quickly out of the way of a patch of two rotten crawlers, clawing and opening their mouths hungrily at her passing ankles.

‘Bloody hell, Three! This is why we don’t do this – talk about this on missions! Runner Five almost got _bitten_ with you bloody distracting me –

Simon had turned his eyes over to her and upon seeing her unscathed and unbitten to his satisfaction, he pulled his mouthpiece closer to his lips. Devious. Fuck. 

Abel Township was in distance, only about five minutes at this pace, and Five sped up, hoping that if they got there quicker Three would be too out of breath to cause chaos. The gates were raising, Simon was quickening up next to her and she heard his breathing getting heavier, almost there, just inside, please thank you God don’t let Simon open his fucking mou-

‘So you were, then? Distracted? Behind the comms desk?’ 

* * *

The sun had well and truly gone down, the purpling, sweet wind blowing in clean and crisp across the fields surrounding Abel. It was a rare British summer evening, the ground still warm from the hot sun in the day and sending pleasant smells up from the earth and in through the open window of the room. Jody sat braiding her hair into two, long, red plaits that hung neatly on her shoulders.

‘I wish my hair was neat like that,’ Five told her, looking down at the simple slip of hair through hair, before Jody pulled the end into a nice bobble. She looked down at her own hair, wild curls that bounced every which way, curls that struggled to be tied back into anything but two tight buns to run in, aided by approximately eighty bobby-pins. She nabbed Jody’s brush and ran it through the frizz, trying to make them lie neatly on her shoulders, before quickly giving up.

‘What are you wearing, Five?’ Jody sat up, standing up and admiring her newly-plaited hair in their cracked mirror. ‘I think I’m going to wear my regular jeans, as I always do, and then I might break out the lucky party camisole,’ she brought out a cream slip-top from the drawer. ‘It’s certainly warm enough for it.’

‘Is it a party when we’re just going to sit down in Janine’s living room drinking beers and cokes like we do every other two weeks and we’re not really allowed to play loud music in fear of the ravenous hordes of undead that bay, ceaselessly, at the walls of our farmstead home?’ Five looked out the window at the purple sky. On the left flank of the township, out by the water tower, a pair of zombies shambled and moaned, rather pitifully, their hands fraying and their bodies too weak to make any impact on the reinforced concrete walls. Behind them, the deep green fields stretched outward before fading into the splendid mango-yellow of the rapeseed just on the edge of eyesight. Five turned away from them, back to face Jody.

‘Well, it’s a party if _I_ say it’s a party.’ Jody wiggled her jeans on, before falling heavily onto the bed on her stomach with a soft _flump_. ‘God, Five, don’t you miss it? The normalcy? I want that sometimes.’ She propped her head up on her hands and looked up at Five. ‘I miss the little normal luxuries. I like getting dressed up, I like to feel good. With a shower time of fifteen minutes four times a week, five if we’re lucky, and with our constant runs, I feel like ninety percent of the time I’m covered in mud and sweat and grime. It’s nice to feel – pretty, if you’ll excuse the frivolity.’ She perked up, and looked at Five, who stared dubiously back at her. ‘It’s nice to feel like a woman, right?’ She laughed deliriously. ‘Half the time I feel like we’ve all sort of morphed into sexless beings. It’s quite nice to look at yourself and think, wow, I am a woman with a face and a chest and an arse. A hot arse, at that!’ Five couldn’t help the snort that bubbled out, and Jody took that as encouragement. ‘C’mon, Five, don’t you miss it, too?’

Five felt her face heat up as she remembered the discussion on the run, the way Sam had sounded – like he was choked – when Runner Three had brought up Five’s turn ons. The way that he had desperately avoided the subject. The thoughts that had flushed through her mind at Three’s suggestion of Sam _distracted_ at the comms desk thinking about her, in that way. The image of him, distracted, at the desk, thinking about her, what she might feel like, what she might like, sent a shiver up her back involuntarily. She knew what Jody meant, to remember her liveness, remember feeling like a woman, with that thought. It danced away quickly though, when she remembered Sam’s response to Three as they sailed back in through the gates. _Don’t be silly, Simon! Five and I are just friends, like you and I are friends, for God’s sake. I wouldn’t – I wouldn’t think of her like that, right Five?_ And she had said right and pretended her mouth didn’t taste sour and went off for her allocated shower time as quickly as she could and she absolutely did not stand there in the water for three of her fifteen minutes in a gauze of self-pity like a sad starlet in a music video.

‘I do,’ she admitted cautiously. ‘It does always feel nice to be admired.’

‘Doesn’t it feel nice to feel pampered, too?’ Jody swung her legs out onto the floor and looked at Five with the same devious smirk as Simon creeping onto her face. Twice, in one day. She had never seen the expression before and now it seemed to be _haunting_ her.

‘I guess, but who can remember?’ Five laughed. The thought of those luxuries, those pamperings, that the before world took for granted, haircuts and manicures and soft, silky dresses, seemed a million miles away, but thinking of them all still brought a wave of comfort. And high heels! Oh, they had hurt like a bitch, but she had felt (the word brought a wave of squinching embarrassment to her face) _sexy_ in them. Jody was right. It had been eons since she had felt that way since.

Jody was rustling through her drawers, and she triumphantly brought out a cloth bag that jostled ominously.

‘You can’t tell anyone,’ she started with a frown that Five gathered was meant to be vaguely threatening.

‘I won’t,’ Five started, then stopped. ‘It’s not a tracker or something for Van Ark is it? Or a severed ear? Because I will have to tell someone then, Jody.’

‘Oh, give it a rest Five, it’s obviously not that.’ She motioned Five over to the bottom bunk and poured out the contents of the bag. Three or four razors, an eyebrow plucker (Five didn’t think that was the word for it, but couldn’t remember the correct one), some blush and a brush for it, a few tubes of red and pink lipgloss that shimmered and caught the light. ‘I haven’t shown anyone them. If I happen across a shop that might have sold stuff like this in it, I always try to duck in and pinch a few.’ She laughed. ‘I know it’s unbelievably stupid, and it would be a ridiculous thing to end up dying over, but they make me feel good like you wouldn’t believe.’

Five sat down next to her and held up a tube of the gloss up to the light. In the pink shimmers of gold caught and swirled in the light, like the old lava lamp her friend from uni had in her room. She had forgotten what it felt like to wear lipgloss, or to shave (though she believed that women absolutely did not need to shave if they did not want to, and always used to laugh when she watched apocalypse shows _pre_ -apocalypse when the women would be all perfectly plucked and tweezed and their dye jobs perfect, hair unruffled, and though she knew all of that, she did miss feeling the softness of her skin).

‘Come on, Five, you’re always so sensible, and in-fatiguable, always up for a run, always up for a new mission, everything for the township. I know there’s more there. Isn’t there anything _frivolous_ you miss? Even Janine, the least fun person in Abel – don’t tell her I said that – even she has Simon,’ Jody mock shivered with disgust. ‘What do you have, Five? What do you miss? It’s a Friday, and I know for a fact you’re not scheduled for any runs tomorrow. Why not?’

Five smiled a bit, remembering. Remembering her _before_. Abel – Jody, Janine, Simon, _Sam_ – none of them would know what to think. They wouldn’t have recognised her, before. She was the quintessential girly girl, she was talkative and always up for nonsense.

‘You know, Jody, if you told my mum, or any of my friends from the before times that you thought I was the sensible, down-to-earth one, they would never have believed you.’ She rose and made her way to her own drawers. In the bottom one, under a few plain white running shirts with various shirt-sleeves depending on weather, she found them. There were only two, two she hadn’t been able to wear for years, the two she hadn’t been able to give them up.

‘I loved dresses, back in the day. I miss how they swish, how young they make me feel,’ She started, and stopped out of a sudden rush of shyness, or perhaps a childish shame, that embarrassed her. ‘It was stupid to even keep two, and I haven’t worn them since before. Not great to run away from zombies in, these.’  
  
Jody looked at Five with absolute delight. Delight at seeing a bit of a private side of her, seeing the sparkles of the before girl.

‘Oh, Five, they are gorgeous. I can’t believe you’re a sneak like me! And for these _girly_ things.’ She snorted. ‘Janine would have a fit, bless her. Well, actually, you never know. She is with Simon, after all.’ She smoothed one of them. ‘This one with the halter is absolutely beautiful. You have to wear it tonight.’

‘Jody, I don’t know,’ She cringed a bit, thinking of it, wearing it, and all the jokes that they would make, jokes that on any other day she could take. It was just after the hope then crash of today she was feeling a bit sensitive, and it would be embarrassing to turn up in a dress for God’s sake. Janine _would_ have a fit. _But,_ a little voice in her head piped up, _maybe it’s a day like today where you need to feel good that the dress would help. Wouldn’t it be fun?_

‘Come on, Five, let your hair down.’ At Five’s dubious look at the curls on her shoulder, Jody rolled her eyes. ‘Your metaphorical hair, idiot. Do it. Why not? What’s going to happen? You’ll feel pretty and have a good time? Sounds like a win-win to me.’

Jody was right.

Why not? It wasn’t as if anyone would be admiring her. She was going to admire her damn self.

* * *

What the fuck (he winced at the swear even though it was only said in his head, and looked around quickly to see if anyone had noticed) was she _playing_ at?

It wasn’t that she was sitting with Nadia, who had ridden over with some New Canton med-supplies and had decided to stay the night rather than risk heading on back in the darkness. It wasn’t that they were laughing together. Even after Nadia had actively tried to kill her, Five was quick to forgive, and the two had built up quite the friendship in the past months. So, even though _Sam_ wasn’t quite over the whole trying-to-get-her-killed-thing, he had accepted a while ago that Five didn’t possess the same grudge as him, and so he wasn’t surprised to see the two chatting and laughing, Nadia still relatively prim and together on the edge of Janine’s sofa, Five a bit more relaxed on the floor, looking up at her.

It wasn’t even that Five had taken a shot of that god-awful British tequila Nadia had brought with her (though she had told them that she’d nabbed it from a distillery near enough that Sam thought he should make a note of it and get back there eventually to bring home some more). She didn’t normally drink – wasn’t a fan of beers, and that was the only thing they had enough constant access to – so the willing acceptance of a shot that she did, linked arms, with Simon, was a bit jarring. But it wasn’t that. Sam had taken one himself, and was at this point nursing his third beer.

‘Alright, there, buddy?’ Maxine swung herself onto the armchair that Sam was currently sitting on, his elbows on his knees and his head slumped a bit, surveying the scene with an intense and suspicious glare. ‘You’re looking like you could kill either Nadia or Five, and since everyone knows Five is your favourite it couldn’t be her, so what has Nadia done to make you look like someone’s slipped zombie blood in your marmite?’

Sam looked up incredulously. ‘Look, Five is not my favourite! She’s just a good friend, I don’t have favourites of my runners, I like them all, okay? Don’t say that Maxine, for God’s sake.’ Maxine widened her eyes and raised her eyebrows, of course she did, the bastard, and Sam was suddenly all too aware of what a crucial, crucial mistake he had just made.

‘Ohh-kay, amigo,’ She took a swig from her own bottle of Corona, and even around the rim he could see that her lips were stretched into a smug, pleased smile. Crucial, crucial mistake.

It was just. This was the thing. It was just Runner Three, this afternoon, talking about Five’s _turn-ons_ , like that was anywhere near appropriate discussion for the workplace (he would have been fired in an instant in the before times, Sam thought grumpily), and then of course Sam was thinking about them – about her, like that, what she would like, and then he was thinking about what she would look like, and sound like, and then Five almost got bitten because _he was too busy thinking about her in bed_ and she was absolutely silent about it all and Sam was just. He was only a person. A suffering person.

That would have been enough.

And _then._ And then, she bloody turns up to the fortnightly drink-and-complain in Janine’s living room in a dress!

Sam didn’t know what to think.

She and Jody strutted in ( _walked normally_ , some rational, not-confused, not-grumpy part of his mind supplied unhelpfully) like they were the after of a 1980s makeover montage, both with a hint of pink on their cheeks and lips, and Five’s shoulders were _bare_ and golden-tan and freckled from running outside and she kept tossing one side of her dark curls back over them and laughing and it was. Just.

Not fair.

And it wasn’t whatever they had on their cheeks and lips (he was betting Janine was going to inquire where they got that contraband anytime soon, he could already see her looking at them quizzically), Sam didn’t care about that, and it wasn’t even about the _dress_ and the dip between her collarbones that it revealed, it wasn’t about that because she was Five, she always looked, well, she always _looked,_ whether she was in leggings and a hoodie or whatever. He didn’t care about that. He didn’t. She just looked so _confident_. It was like she was lit from the inside out and, for God’s sake, did she have to keep tossing her bloody hair.

‘It’s not even as if we have air conditioning in here,’ he mumbled, and his eyebrows darkened. ‘There’s no need for all that flipping.’

‘You doing alright, Sammy boy?’ Maxine asked, and he could see from here she was trying not to laugh. Absolute bastard. ‘You’re talking to yourself there, did you know?’

‘I’m fine, Doc,’ and he was fine. The dress wasn’t anything overly special. It wasn’t like Five had walked in wearing a Bond Girl cocktail dress with a slit up the side. It was a summer dress, with a halter around her neck, and a deep cut down to expose her – no, no, that was dangerous thinking. It brushed just below her knee, it wasn’t like it was a super-short one, more something you would see a girl in a fifties film wear on the beach. It was cotton, he thought, covered with flowers. Normal. A normal summer dress. Sam was fine. Five sat up a bit on her elbows to listen more intently to Nadia and Jody, and as she raised one knee to cross lightly over the other the dress slipped to expose all of her calf and the line of her thigh and no, actually, Sam wasn’t fine. He watched the muscle move under her skin, scanned it for freckles, like the one under the bone of her ankle or the three on the bit of thigh just above her knee that seemed to make an isosceles triangle. She looked so soft to the touch, and as she laughed happily the leg crossed over the other raised, just slightly, in delight, and Sam was absolutely not fine, watching it move, thinking about how it would feel in his hand, Sam was absolutely not fine at all and he realised suddenly Maxine was talking to him.

‘You know, Sam, did I ever tell you that I had feelings – a crush, I called it – on Paula for quite a while before we got together?’ She looked more concerned than amused now and placed a tender hand on his arm. ‘I never thought she’d ever like me back, and I used to watch her for hours and ours, whenever I could. It was like I was always thirsty, and she was a cool glass of Diet Coke,’ Maxine’s eyes had gone dreamy, the way they always did when she talked about Paula. ‘I finally made the move, and I was so happy, and where I used to stare at her waist, after I’d made the move, I could put my arm around it.’

‘That’s really nice, Maxine, it’s really lovely,’ He replied, not really listening, more concerned with the line of Five’s neck as she threw it back to laugh at something Simon had interjected and suddenly Sam hated Simon more than he had ever hated anyone in the world.

Maxine rolled her eyes for some reason, and unfolded herself from the arm of the chair, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like _well, I did try_ , migrating over to sit in the space between Nadia and Jody on the couch.

‘Well, we’ve been doing these Fridays for a god-honest long old time now, chaps,’ Simon laughed, moving over to Janine’s chair and slinging an arm around her. Janine tried very hard not to look pleased.

‘That we have,’ Jody nodded, raising her beer to him.

‘I had a bit of inspiration on the run today,’ Simon had a _look_ on his face that Sam absolutely did not like, not one bit. Five had turned to look at him, and a rush of curls covered the side of her face. She pushed them back a bit behind her ear, over the shoulder again, and suddenly Sam was very fascinated with her profile. Her mouth, where it curved up, dubiously. ‘I made a joke about Five’s turn-ons, and before you hit me, Janine, it was only a joke.’ Janine looked up at him with a carefully-arranged innocence, as if to _say, me? I would never be annoyed with you, Simon!_ As if she wasn’t already noting this down to admonish him later. ‘And I thought, wouldn’t it be fun if we played a sort of Truth or Dare? We’re all friends here, and I feel like we’ve all reached the point where we can learn of each other’s sexual experiences and laugh about it.’ He smiled winningly at the group, and Maxine burst into laughter.

‘Simon, you are a lech,’ She grinned. ‘I’m in.’

‘See, Doctor’s orders. It’s healthy,’ he lectured, following up with a much quieter ‘a _nd it will be bloody funny._ ’ He moved to the middle of the room, picking up one of the empty bottles, shaking the few droplets left into his mouth before laying it on the floor. ‘Everyone gather round, then, sit on the floor, just here. We’re going to do it like a modified spin the bottle. But when it lands on you, you have to answer a question. Or do a dare, I guess, but those are always a bit boring, especially when you’re stuck inside the walls of a farmstead in fear of zombies outside.’

‘Isn’t this a bit juvenile, Simon?’ Jody snorted, taking a swig from her beer. ‘We’re not sixteen anymore, you know?’

‘Aw, come on Jody,’ Maxine laughed, sitting on the floor spot Simon indicated and stretching out her legs. ‘Janine’s meant to be the resident prude.’

‘Dr. Myers!’ Janine protested, her eyes bright with what Sam regrettably knew was a challenge. If even Janine was going to fall, which she was because Maxine had baited her to, then the rest of them had no chance. ‘I am in.’ She folded herself primly on the rug, and Simon laughed and put an arm around her shoulders.

‘That’s my girl! Come on, the rest of you, what could go wrong?’

* * *

A lot. A lot could go wrong.

Sam wasn’t a bad person. He didn’t do bad things. He sought to avoid unkindness.

Why, then, was he clearly destined to this hellish, hellish life?

The game was predictably both funny and embarrassing in equal measure, and there had been some surprising revelations that he had neither expected nor particularly wanted to know. Like the fact that Janine had once had a one-night stand with the man who used to run the Royal Welsh farm show. Or that Maxine had only ever slept with one man, when she was sixteen, and that the only thing that really stuck out in her memory about it was that he had called her Maxie-sweetness until she had laughed and then he had pouted and refused to carry on. Or that Jody had seen Owen wanking in the showers. Or that Runner Three had had a quickie with the blonde girl, Heather, who used to help the medics out in New Canton, in the old post office on a run and had almost got bitten by a zombie. Lots of things that Sam did not really need to have stored in his brain, but nothing too mortifying.

And then.

The bottle had landed on Five, and she had laughed good-naturedly and bobbed her head in acquiescence of a question. And he had seen the _look_ cross Maxine’s face.

‘I have a question for Five,’ she grinned, and this was bad. This was bad-bad. ‘I want to know the answer to Simon’s question from your run.’ She looked towards Simon with a raised eyebrow. ‘I presume Five didn’t actually tell you her turn-ons, did she?’

‘You know our Five, tight-lipped till the end.’

‘Well, there we go. Five, what _are_ your turn-ons?’ He was going to turn off the cameras the next time Simon went for a run. Let the zombies get him. And he was going to do something equally as bad to Maxine, something he would figure out when he wasn’t listening so intently.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Five started, clearly a bit unsure. The blush that was spreading over her cheeks was deeper than the makeup, Sam could see it, and he wished that part of his brain wasn’t just shouting _delicious delicious delicious._ Had he been bitten by a zombie lately? He didn’t think he had, but the absolute _need_ he had to put his mouth on her cheek was slightly disturbing.

‘I’ll tell you mine, if it would help, Five,’ Maxine offered with a smile. ‘I’m sure none of us are shy here.’

‘I like to be choked,’ Janine offered helpfully, before a look of realisation at what she had said crossed her face and quickly transformed her features to horror. She was about four beers in and very red-cheeked.

‘There you go, Five, Janine likes to be choked! No shame here. Go on, you picked question,’ Maxine cajoled.

‘Well,’ she was tossing her hair again. This was dangerous territory. Sam tried very hard to lean in closer without anyone noticing what he was doing. ‘I guess, I mean I do, I do like it when I’m talked to, when someone is talking to me while, you know, things are happening.’ She laughed a bit, and there was the confidence glow, and Sam was going to _cry_ because all he could think about was what her voice would sound like breathless, about how she would react with his mouth to her ear, he was just going to _cry_ here in front of everyone _._ ‘I’m sorry, I sound like a teenager, with all the euphemisms. It’s been so long, I don’t know, it’s just embarrassing, isn’t it?’

‘Way to out how long it’s been since you’ve been laid, Five,’ Jody laughed.

‘Well, we are in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, I don’t think that’s exactly the most fertile ground for a roll in the hay.’ Five retorted, raising an eyebrow and smiling. This was it. Sam was not just going to cry. He was going to _die._

‘That’s not it, is it Five? Pathetic show.’ Simon admonished. Five flipped him off.

‘Jody interrupted me, that wasn’t my fault. I like being told what to do, as well. Where to touch and where to go and stuff like that.’ She ducked her head and laughed a bit. ‘Why is this so embarrassing? I also like being kissed just here,’ she pointed to that dip between her collarbones at the hollow of her throat, that dip that Sam was so fixated upon, and great, now he was just imagining kissing her there, this was unfair, this was torture. Physical and mental torture. ‘And I guess sometimes I like to be complimented. I suppose everyone does though. Is that enough? A woman has to have some secrets, you know.’

It was enough. It was enough to make Sam feel like he was going to pass out.

‘Now, when you say complimented,’ Maxine started.

‘I don’t know, good girl and the like. Let’s move on, Jody, I believe it’s your turn to spin?’

Sam knew he was looking at her, perhaps outright staring at her, but his eyes no longer felt like they belonged to him. When Janine rose and declared they could have the music on _if_ they kept it on a medium volume, Simon leaned over and patted him on the shoulder, speaking quietly into his ear.

‘Put your eyes back in your head mate, and your tongue back in your mouth. You may as well be shouting AAOOGA. Not a good look.’ He patted him again, helpfully, and meandered over to annoy Janine.

Fucking Runner Three.

* * *

Fridays were always fun, and this one had been especially so. Five sat quietly on the steps outside Janine’s for a breath of cool air, staring at the far-away stars, and the memory of Jody explaining step-by-step how to give a striptease caught her by surprise and made her laugh. The air was sweet and clear out here, and she closed her eyes and let the smells of the far-off grass blow around her, complimented by the soft laughter that escaped from indoors in bursts and beams, always quiet, even when everyone was half-cut. Second nature, quiet, now.

The door swung open, startlingly creaky and loud against the relative silence of the township, and she cracked open half an eye, propping herself on her elbows against the step above. Sam was there, half a foot over the doorway, arm leant on the frame, looking at her. He had a queasy, unsure expression on his face, but she was struck by the way the yellow light sent long bones of light against his sharp cheeks and the bow of his lip, and she suddenly felt not very cool at all.

‘Alright, Sam? Are you feeling okay?’ She tried to smile, normally. ‘Want to come sit by me for a bit? I just came out for a breath or two. It’s a bit wild in there, well, for us, relatively speaking.’ She patted the space next to her on the step, in what she hoped was a friendly-seeming gesture. Sam stood there, that same position, and his eyes were bright and searching.

‘Runner Five,’ he started. ‘Do you really like it when someone talks to you a lot? Where someone tells you what to do,’ he hesitated. ‘Where to go?’

The shiver of the night crept on her even though she felt the opposite of cold. With his eyes on her, so questioning, that expression so unfamiliar, she realised what he was asking. What she had suggested with her admission. Who talked to her the most. Who told her where to go, how to run, what to do.

She felt her eyes widening and words seemed a million miles away. He dropped his head and shook it a bit, before turning to go back inside.

‘Five – sorry. Forget it. Didn’t mean to – didn’t mean that.’

Oh fuck.

* * *

‘Down, down, Runner Five, duck your head – yes, yes that’s it!’ Sam sounded like he was running himself, his breath coming hard and fast as Five dropped her head quickly and winced at the hail of gunfire Runner Eight sent over her head at the fast zombie about a centimetre from her elbow. She breathed out a sigh of relief as he went down hard, the putrid smell of his breath quickly falling away from her back. ‘That’s it! Keep going, faster, fast as you can go!’ That, however, wasn’t a relief. The constant instruction. She felt a heat prickle up the back of her neck. It was the first run she had been on since the weird half-conversation on the step of Janine’s house. Sam and his bloody _voice_ and now that he’d acknowledged it, that night, that maybe she enjoyed this (did he acknowledge it, really, though? Maybe she had taken it the wrong way. And he was half-gone anyway) she could barely think. She hadn’t drawn the conclusion until he had made it obvious for her, and now she was aware of it, it was torture.

‘Y’alright there, Five?’ Sara fell into step very easily next to her, thumping along and holstering her gun. ‘You look a little green.’

‘Did Eight say you weren’t looking well, there, Five?’ Sam pipes up. ‘You weren’t nipped, were you?’

‘No, Sam, Eight, I’m fine. Where are we going?’ _Why did I ask that?_

‘Yeah, Sam, tell us what to do next.’ Runner Eight, you son of a bitch. Who told you?

‘Well, Eight, you’re going to have to separate off up here and head back to Abel – you’ve got precious cargo there,’

Eight jiggled her backpack.

‘I raided a weapons cache up near the old leisure centre. Some out-of-date stuff, I’d guess, but a lots of it will be very handy indeed. Where’s Five off, Sam?’

‘Five has to do a special little job for me – not for me! For the major!’ _He knows. He knows I’m thinking about it._ ‘So I need to keep her going for a bit.’

‘I’m sure you’ll both have a grand time,’ _Fuck you, Sara._ ‘See you around, Five. Hope you won’t get too hot and bothered out here, under this sun.’ Eight laughed and sent Five a quick wink before peeling off to the left. _I was right when I first met her. Eight is not my friend._

‘Did she just wink at you? She is so weird sometimes, isn’t she, Runner Eight?’ Five could hear him shuffling around at the other end of the line, probably bringing out another map for her to follow. ‘She does do well in a pinch, though, doesn’t she? God, Five, I don’t know what we would have done without her there. Yeah, yeah, that’s right, keep straight for at least ten minutes here, into that copse of apple trees. Is it really hot there, Five? Are you doing alright? Need to stop for a drink? I saw you on Eight’s camera and you did look quite flushed. Don’t want you getting heat stroke on me.’

‘I’m good, Sam. Let’s just keep going.’

‘Sounds good to me.’ She heard him crackle on the other end. ‘Sorry for that, I’m getting a drink of water myself.’ She was thinking about the line of his throat now, the way it would bob and how his jaw would stutter as he swallowed and, yep, dangerous territory, focus on the run, Five. She narrowly avoided a group of flat, easily-trippable rocks that scattered out on the path.

She ran on, the thump-thump of her feet on the ground soothing. _Don’t speak, Sam, don’t speak. Don’t speak to me._

‘Right, here we are Five, that little platform in the trees there. Can you see it?’

There was a ladder on the bark in front of her, and she scaled it quickly, the splinters cutting into her palm. It had been here quite a time without care, she thought, with a wince. When she pushed her head through the twigs and leaves she emerged out onto a wide, load-bearing platform that hung across the branches of around three of the big apple trees. It looked as if someone had half-started a treehouse and then given up.

‘That’s right, there you are! Just setting up some cameras and dropping off some supplies, if you don’t mind, nothing too taxing. Right, move to the left there. Can you see that branch? Yes, that tall one. You’re going to have to stretch a bit, fasten the string across so the camera hangs over. Stretch a little bit further for me, just a bit more, come on, Five, I know you can do this,’ This wasn’t Sam. He didn’t keep the instruction up to this detail, normally, did he? She felt hot all over, and was minutely aware of her t-shirt slipping up her ribcage as she pushed herself to extend that bit further. Was he – no. _No._ He wouldn’t. Concentrate, Five. She hooked the strap and buttoned it to the other edge of the camera and adjusted it to the right. 

‘Yes, there you are. Amazing. Other side, please. Yes, there you go. You’re always so good at this, Five,’ He must have been doing it purposely. He must have. There was a – timidity in his voice. Testing the waters. No, no, he isn't. You’re making it up, Five.

‘Now, we have to leave some supplies here for your good pals, the Girl Guides. They’re going to hook us up with some more of those _explosive support devices_ in exchange for some extra paracetamol, some antiseptic, and a ten-tonne of butter, flour, sugar and chocolate chips. Oh! Do you think they’re going to make some biscuits? I’d be happy to buy them.’ Five snorted. ‘The issue is, is that they aren’t going to be able to swing by until at least four o’clock, something about emergency rope tying session or the like. So we need to protect them – or at least hide them, until they come here. At the minute you can still see up here on the platform. I’m not sure how we’re going to do this, to be honest with you, Five.’

Five snorted. She unzipped her backpack and uncurled a length of rope. Some _very_ uncomfortable and frightening crawling across and up three tree branches and a few ingenious knots later (the Girl Guides were very useful, no matter Sam’s doubt) the crate had been installed high above the treeline and out of sight. She shimmied down the trunk ladder and was back on the road to Abel before Sam had even had the time to brew his next cup of tea. Five was feeling immensely pleased with herself and then –

‘Wow, that is my clever girl, Five! You are – you are amazing at that!’

* * *

Look, the thing was.

Sam, as much of a beacon of moral turpitude as he tried to be, was still a person. A person who was, as they all were, flawed. A person who was, as they all were, _weak._

And so, maybe, this human, very human, weakness had led Sam to – experiment? Was that the right word? Test? Or maybe – push. Push the edges, a bit. Try the waters. See how far he could toe over that line.

And she had reacted so beautifully, that was the thing. He didn’t think she would even notice. It was Sam who was saying it, wasn’t it? Sam, who she wouldn’t have – those thoughts – about, would she? And yet. And yet.

She had flushed, that gentle pink blush from that Friday night. He could see it on some of the cams, which felt creepy if he stopped to think about it. And her voice was a bit more strangled, than usual. And reticent as she was to talk while running on the best of days, she was even quieter, today.

Much to think about, Sam mulled, trying very hard to ignore the feeling that was sitting warm and unavoidable in his chest and in his hips – and woah, ignoring. Ignoring. He stretched back behind the desk as Five ran through the gates. He took his headphones off and stared at the gritty wood of the comms desk. He ran his hands over his face and then reclined back into his chair with them still over his eyes. He ached and burned and was also terribly, terribly pleased, in some small part of himself.

The door to the comms shack squeaked open and he responded without opening his eyes or removing his hands from his face. ‘Janine, I told you, I don’t need you watching me every second of the day, I continue to be rather a competent radio operator, as I have been for the past however many weeks, months, years, etcetera. So, will you _please_ stop interfering - ’ he swung forward and removed his palms with a glare reserved for what he thought was Janine ready to criticise him for untidy desks or too much singing over the mission lines, but was utterly and horribly surprised to find Five, there, standing in the doorway, staring, at him. The light was sluicing through, from the outside, and picked out every line on her body. Some part of him vaguely registered the voices of Eugene and Owen, chatting, outside, and another part filled in the colours of the chicken coop and the colours of the trees and the colours of the blue sky. But those parts were totally divorced from the vast majority of the rest of Sam’s brain, very much working on their own and not what he was focused on at all whatsoever. The main body, the entirety of it, was firmly fixed on her. She was in shorts, because it was hot, of course, and the strappy shirt she had was gauzy and blue and pale enough that he could see the turquoise of her sports bra underneath ( _don’t look there, Sam, you idiot, up, up, up!_ ). Her hair was loose from her usual running buns, and she had this look on her face. She was red, from the running, and the sun, probably, and she had this just – her eyes were _dark_ , dark, and they were looking at him, and her chest was heaving, heaving, and he couldn’t tell if she was furious or something he couldn’t even allow himself to hope for and she was standing there, and he was looking back at her and god she was just, he was just – she was going to kill him off if she didn’t say anything or didn’t walk over to him and _do something,_ she was going to kill him or he was going to have to stand up, he was going to have to push his way from the desk and stride over there and he was going to have to cup his hands under her jaw, that soft spot just beneath her ears, and he was going to have to tilt her chin upwards and feel just a few of the soft strands of her hair in his fingers and he was going to have to just _kiss_ her – he was going to have to, he felt himself rising from the desk almost unconsciously and he could see her take a step forward and they were going to, he was going to – and then. Fucking – fucking, fucking, _fucking_ – Eugene.

‘Hey, Sam, can I borrow a cable for the radio show, for some reason the audio keeps crackling and making a noise like fireworks? Every time I turn a song up beyond the annoy-your-parents-sound-threshold and like, obviously, we can’t have that, and Jack said it would be the cable, and you would know which one – oh, hey, Five,’ he said, appearing behind her and forcing his way in behind her, and the spell was utterly, abruptly broken. He at least seemed to have the graciousness to realise, because once he had drawn breath he took a long, slow look ( _yeah, you see what you’ve interrupted, you bastard_ ) between Five, bright red and dark-eyed and now clearly, clearly embarrassed, gaze fixed firmly to the floor, and Sam, half-risen from behind the desk, looking straight at her, stare still pinned to her. He couldn’t imagine the expression on his face, but he would bet that it was somewhere between frightened and _hungry._

‘Hi, Eugene,’ she started, and fixed him with a bright, everything-is-okay-and-normal-and-I-didn’t-just-come-in-here-and-eye-fuck-Sam-from-the-doorway smile, a smile that Sam could feel in his bones was absolutely artificial but still felt hopelessly crushing, a smile that made him think, no, you made that up, Sam. It wasn’t going to happen, Sam. She raised the headset dangling from her fingertips. ‘Here you go, Sam, just bringing back the headset! Thank you for all your help on the run, as always.’ She crossed closer to him and the desk, where he was still in the awkward half-stand. He would have thought he’d imagined the last few minutes, her face was that relaxed, her voice breezy and unbothered, but for the fact her hand, where she placed the set down in front of him, shook when she withdrew it. Just a tremble – but still, a shake. She waved at them both and turned to face the outside. ‘See you both at dinner!’ bright and cool as a spring day, she left them, shaking the brown curls over her shoulder as she left.

Sam turned his eyes to Eugene. Eugene winced.

‘Uh, I’m sorry – really, really sorry, Sam – I didn’t mean to - ’ _didn’t mean to what? Interrupt? Was there even something to interrupt?_ The whole encounter, as the minutes slipped away, began to feel as if it were a fever dream Sam had concocted in his own mind. He sighed, sank back down into his seat, and began digging in the drawer for Eugene’s damn cable.

* * *

Then – then it wasn’t even funny anymore.

It felt like everything, _everything_ was working to push them together. But not together, either. Close, but not close enough. Five was on fire, all of the time. All of the time.

There was the bloody rowing race, when, predictably, the undead had infested the water like slippery, rotten cod suppers that absolutely no-one wanted with their mushy peas, and Sam and Five had rowed and rowed and rowed while Jamie and Nadia ran their way around that deus-ex-machina of a military base for guns, and Sam’s shirt had stuck to his body every which way and she had almost said fuck this, fuck this to the zombies under the boat and fuck this to Jamie and Nadia (Nadia had tried to kill her once, so even stevens, right?) and just tossed the oars and climbed over to kiss every part of his damp skin. His cheeks all flushed from the cold, the sweat that beaded up incongruously over his eyebrow, his lips where his tongue brushed out to lick the water from the sides of his mouth, the line of his throat his collar exposed when it hung down, sodden and heavy from the rain.

There was the time that Five hadn’t been able to sleep, and she had bumped into Sam in the mess hall where she was making tea, popping a bag of peppermint into a cup, and he had crept up behind her and said ‘Hi’, laughingly, the shit, he was _laughing_ as he surprised her, his voice next to her ear, just over her shoulder. She had jumped and whirled around and then he had looked down and so had she and realised he had unknowingly walked her back against the table. And if he put his arms down onto the table with the tea stuff, he would have her braced in, his hips almost bumping hers, her thin pyjama shorts and top brushing his cotton pants and his t-shirt, still rumpled from sleep, their stomachs almost together in the blue-light night. And then they weren’t laughing anymore, neither of them, and then the kettle went off and Sam moved back very quickly and they didn’t speak very much at all after that, rushing off.

This time, it was the buggering barn.

The thing was, Sam had, for God-knows-what-reason, decided that he wanted to join them for a run. Something about trying to figure out from hands-on experience where some new camera routes should get set up. And figuring out good corridors for trade. But then, then, Runner Three had run on the right side of the massive fat oak tree and Jody followed him, but Five had already gone left and Sam, for whatever reason she could not fathom, followed _her_. And then, predictably, there was a horde on their heels and Jody and Simon kept right for New Canton, while Sam directed Five to a nearby barn with lockable doors they could wait in until Abel saw fit to come rescue them. They even managed to speed up quickly enough that they darted in outside of the eyeline of the zoms. They could hear them, though, outside. If they were quiet enough, if they made no sound whatsoever, then hopefully the horde would keep on shambling. Would give the Abel squad a much easier job to get them out of there.

Easy. Simple. A delight, some would say.

But, for some absurd, the-universe-is-having-a-field-day reason, the barn was filled top to bottom with hay bales, leaving just a slim corridor of space next to a large wooden support beam, pressed uncomfortably closely to the doors. A slim corridor of space big enough for, oh, she didn’t know, maybe two bodies? Two bodies also pressed uncomfortably closely to the doors, and to each other.

She could see Sam thinking _why the fuck are there hay bales in here._ She was inclined to agree. They didn't know of any agricultural settlements around here, and stacking up this much hay required serious effort. But then she saw him open his mouth as if to say it out loud and the zombies were right there and he had that bloody look on his face with the furrowed eyebrows and the absent eyes and the mouth open in a scrunch of injustice and confusion and she knew there was no way in hell she would be able to stop him speaking so she just. Reacted. Her hand flew up and pressed itself against his mouth, and she raised a finger to her own lips, before pointing at the door, where she could hear a low, ominous death-rattle.

She thought it was fine. And that Sam understood. And then she looked at Sam, and his eyes were wide as saucers and he was looking – staring – at her hand over his mouth and then down, down, where their bodies were jam-packed together. Closer, even, than the night-time tea incident. She suddenly felt more aware of every inch of her skin than she ever had been in her life. That was what his hip felt like, then, pressing insistently into hers, pushing it back into the beam. That was what his leg felt like, then, what his _thigh_ felt, practically pressed between her own. Unbearably hot, and inches away from her – her. That was what his stomach felt like, then, skin to skin, barely touching, air touching, with her own. It was through his t-shirt, to be fair, but Five had no air. She couldn’t breathe. That was what his arms felt like, then, warm and elbows bony, skin taut and haired, next to her own. She followed the lines, the shadows and warmth, of his body, next to, complimenting, her own, with her own eyes, up to the hollows of his throat. How languid, and lovely, and strong, it looked. How taut and tight his collarbones were, the bright and bobbing, hungry, movements of his neck when he swallowed. How she could almost feel that swallow against her arm. How she could definitely feel his mouth, dry, warm, hot with breath and a little damp with the softness of his inner lip, against her hand. Could feel it when his tongue darted out, by habit, to wet the corners of his mouth. She met his eyes, and realised, an alarm bell ringing in a very distant part of her brain, that he had watched her do that. Drag her gaze down him hungrily, drunk it in where his body touched hers, made clear she knew very clearly how slim the space was between them, felt very clearly the bow-string of air between them. She had, she noted vaguely, acknowledged this. With her eyes. But acknowledged it, nonetheless. With sort of a dazed, removed, trepidation, she removed her hand from his mouth, and closed her eyes.

The rescuers found them like that, Five with her eyes closed, both in silence, thirty minutes later.

* * *

Five had suddenly become absolutely impossible to track down, was the issue.

After the barn, it was like she was nowhere. He spoke to her on the runs, of course, but all of the missions this week had required at least two runners, and Sam was not bold to bring it up there, or try another toe-the-line experiment in front of Jody, or god forbid, Simon. As soon as she was in the compound, however, it was like she was a ghost. Whenever she saw Sam on his own, it was like should could produce another person as if by magic, and whenever he got up the nerve to talk to her, it was like she read his mind, his intentions, and vanished to do another random job. Sowing pea seeds? Five was there. Taking the heads off broken shovels and attaching them to new ones? Five was there. Reading to Molly and the other children? Feeding the chickens? Helping Janine inspect the bed linens?

Five was there, Five was there, Five was there.

Sam felt like he was rigged to explode. Like there was that chemical clay under his skin.

And then, in the ultimate insult to injury, she turned up to the next every-other-Friday in another dress. A different dress!

This one didn’t have that – that halter, thing, around her neck. It had thin straps. And it didn’t flare out – it hugged her body, broken three times with a very thin line of ruffle. It was shorter – way above her knees. Faded blue and white stripes, cotton too, he thought. He spent a lot of time, considering this dress.

He could see a good deal of thigh, and there was his isosceles triangle freckle. Staring back at him.

He couldn’t even find it in himself to get flustered. He felt like he had been doused in gasoline, staring at her. The hair and the hips and the pert curve of her arse – it felt good to say it, even in his head – and her glossed lips.

Fuck. This.

He grimaced, and swallowed his beer, and waited for Five to inevitably leave for her necessary air break. No-one, not even, Maxine bothered him. He wondered if they could see it from his face. Probably. He found, with disinterested surprise, that he absolutely did not care.

* * *

‘Five,’ she half-jumped out of her skin. It was another pleasant evening, the skin on her shoulders gently brushed by the cool breeze, the stars unamused eyes, all the way above the township, cold and implacable. She had drawn the dark tight around her, and she was surprised by the voice. She flushed deeper when she recognised it.

Sam was staring at her. Janine’s door was shut behind him, the sounds of the gathering muted behind his shoulders. His eyes were glassy and silver in this light, and they were looking, searchingly, at her. She could see it. In his shoulders, firm and set in a stance she hadn’t seen before. In his hands.

‘Sam,’ She said it clearly, and stopped herself from wincing at how loud it sounded in the quiet of the evening. She would not whisper. She wouldn’t let him think that she was the one afraid of this. She wasn’t, really. (A little bit).

‘Five,’ he repeated. Then walked past her, down the stairs, and then she was looking at his back, crossing the courtyard. She imagined the line of his spine under his t-shirt. She had thought – she had thought. That maybe it would be tonight. She shook her head to rid herself of it, but something felt a bit bruised and tender in her chest.

Sam stopped, and half-turned. She could see those flashing, glassy, silvery eyes again. Looking at her.

‘Aren’t you coming?’

* * *

She was here.

With him.

She was here, in the comms shack, sitting, rather demurely, with her ankles crossed and her back lovely and straight, on his sofa. He was also here, and the door had been locked (he was not even going to think about Janine’s wrath in the morning. He wouldn’t allow himself, not now, when she was here). He was leaning on the comms desk, looking at her looking at him. They didn’t say anything, and the purple of the evening around them was silent. He fancied he could see goosebumps on her shoulders, from the chill.

‘Well,’ she said, and she was looking at the floor, now, and Sam felt hot panic ache in his throat at what she was going to follow that up with. _Well, this awkward silence has been lovely, Sam, but I’m secretly married to Zac Efron or George Clooney (yes, they are still alive! Lucky, right) and he’s waiting for me in my bunk, so I’m going to get going now, if you don’t mind._

‘Well,’ she said again, and rose from the sofa, and the panic tasted bitter as bile. ‘This isn’t going to work.’

But she didn’t turn. She didn’t. She crossed the room in about four steps and suddenly there she was, there her body was, in front of him. The heat of the skin of her thighs against his trousers, her stomach centimetres from his own. Her hands coming up to play with the skin of his wrist, moving it back and forward over the bone. And then Sam was looking at her face, her turn-up nose, the freckles, the eyes and the lashes and oh god, a strangled voice in his head supplied, the lips and then the lips were moving forward and the lashes were fluttering closed and he was overwhelmed with how good she smelt and then. Then she was kissing him.

God, her mouth was warm. It was a lot sweeter, the kiss, than he imagined it would be (and wanked furiously to, in the nights). She had nudged her nose against his, and then their faces fit together like he wanted them to and in a way that felt so good, and her mouth was so, so, so soft and this was actually perfect, the way she moved her chin just so, always moving a little bit back, like she was drawing something from him, drawing him towards her, and she was making this little, soft, mmph, and then. Then, Sam, who had been following her face and her mouth with his own face and mouth every time she made those small, incremental movements backwards, couldn’t really take much more of it. He stood up tall, and slid his arm around her waist (and she was letting him! Letting him!) so she couldn’t move back, she just had to move forward and kiss him with that warm, warm mouth, that soft lip-over-lip, and his fingers skated against her lower back, softening over the small of it, and the other hand came to rest on her chin, tilting it just back a bit, so he could keep his mouth there, against hers, endlessly.

He could probably come from this (this was not a surprise – the other day Sam had watched her right down a shopping list for the others for when she did a Waterstones run and her sloping, languid handwriting and the way her hand brushed against the page alone had literally made Sam hard and aching underneath the mess hall table), and the thought was very distressing. Not enough to stop, though. 

Then, then – she opened her mouth.

Sam didn’t – he couldn’t – wait. He had her body turned, pushing back against the table, his hand dropping from her shoulder to grab at the table, before she could even begin to kiss him more. She makes a little gasp, a little, high thing that goes straight to Sam’s cock and her hands are on him now, one finger hot and drawing a thin line across the bone of his collar, another on the middle of his back, pressing him closer, closer, as _if_ he wouldn’t want to touch every single part of her body. He can feel her, now, the heat of her, his leg sliding between hers and pushing them apart (and God, he can’t think about that too hard), how soft she feels and the lovely, bending line of her waist down through to her hips. She lets him, too, she lets him get as close as he wants and Sam _wants_ close, he wants everything, everything she will give him. Her mouth is – her mouth is – just really, really wonderful. He slides his tongue in, slowly, languidly, pulling back like a wave, testing the waters, and she makes this really quite exquisite sound and arches up towards him so her chest is pressing into him and that is. That is. He skates his hands down to the backs of her thighs and lifts them up with a strength he had no idea he possessed onto the table and he uses the leg-sized gap he’s created to leverage his hips between her thighs and – _yes_.

She doesn’t like that he’s doing everything now, though, he knows that, and she lightly – lightly – scrapes her teeth over his bottom lip and Sam can’t actually remember what it felt like to have thoughts anymore. She pulls back but then she’s in, close, all in Sam’s space again – she’s lightly nipping the bottom of Sam’s earlobe, and pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses to the bony bump underneath his jaw, and then she’s sucking hot, sweet, bruises against the edge of his jaw and down the line of his neck and in the moments where Sam is not actively fighting against going blind he can see her lips and they are swollen soft and impossibly, impossibly inviting, strawberry-dark and he can feel her nails on his shoulders and then she is pulling, pulling at his shirt and she is taking it up and over his head and he can feel every press of her fingerprint and he is _on fire_ and the shirt is off and he is suddenly aware of how raggedly he is breathing, and of her eyes, on him.

All over him, raking over his stomach, up to his chest and over his shoulders and down his arms to the wrists and the beat that Sam can almost see push the skin up and then back all the way up to his face and Sam has never looked at someone and seen such red, raw, hunger and he thinks actually, he might faint, and he has never been harder in his entire life.

‘Jesus, Sam,’ and her voice is _wrecked_ already, just from kissing him, and that makes Sam feel quite a bit better, like he is not the only one falling _apart_ , and then she is back touching, touching, touching, skating her fingers across his shoulders and down to play with the dip between his collarbones, down across his arms to the soft bit on the inside of his elbow and to his wrist and to his fingertips, and then she drags her open, hot palms across his stomach and then she’s got her thumb rubbing back and for on his hips and then her hand is unbuckling his belt and she’s not even looking, her eyes closed and mouth moving, soft and endless against his. He is so overheated and she is still kissing him, that drowning kiss, and God, he is not touching her enough.

* * *

Then he is pulling away and why the fuck is he pulling away and she is going to cry and then he is pushing her back, slowly, onto the comms desk, and following her body with his own and oh. Oh.

‘Just – just let me -’ His eyes are flashing again, up at her from where his mouth is leaving a hot line down from her jaw to that spot, there, between her collarbones. He dips his tongue there, just above the bone, then he nips it – just a bit – and drags his teeth over it, then sucks it hard into his mouth. She is distantly aware that she is keening, embarrassingly, but doesn’t care enough to make a concerted enough to stop, especially when he pulls back, flutters a few kisses on the sensitive skin, and then smiles at her – smiles at her, a dark, _wanting_ smile she has never seen directed at her before.

‘Just let me, please, let me,’ he’s murmuring into her skin, his words muffled against her shoulder as he slides one strap down, and then the other, and she thinks _I will let you do anything in this moment literally anything, '_ 'Let me take everything.'

She doesn’t even contemplate saying no.

He slides the dress down, tapping her hips lightly with his hand so she will raise them and he can pull the fabric down for good and before she really understands what’s happening she is naked but for her underwear and her converses, which, bizarrely, are still on her feet, and she is on the comms desk with her legs spread and Sam between them and her back is down on the wood and she is half propped on her elbows, her chest heaving, (she feels like she is about to pass out, the air she’s taking in ragged and insufficient) and Sam is looking at her. Looking, looking, looking.

* * *

It is. This is. Unbelievable.

She has a pair of knickers on – white, lacy, a hangover from a time where such things were produced, and they almost glow against her summer-warmed tan skin, and it might be Sam’s imagination but he fancies that they look _damp_ like there’s a wet patch on the fabric if he stares just – there – and he quickly stops himself because if he does, this will be over far too quickly. The curves of her are so gorgeous on the table Sam thinks that it is frankly rather good that all of the art galleries were destroyed because every piece of art would be a fucking waste compared to this. He carefully, slowly, lifts a hand to her chest, and just – lightly – skates a finger over her nipple, and she shivers. He gently draws a circle around it, pushing the tip of his finger back and forth over it, slowly, softly, barely touching. He can’t let himself think about the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra, can’t think about how many times he has been in a room with her where she has not had a bra on because he might _cry_ from the waste of it, of the waste of not touching her like this. Her nipples are pink, pinkening the longer he does this and coming up hard in the cold air and she is making soft, continuous huffs of pleasure, and when he looks up she is watching his hand and her lips are obscene, so bitten and pink, and she looks, like Sam, as if she is about to pass out.

Round and round, back and forth.

When she is squirming – moving – underneath him, he brings his finger and thumb together and rolls it, lightly at first but then harder, then squeezes a little, draws it up, and she is exquisite, moving beneath him, her mouth slack and open and lovely, her moans small and gasping. He realises he has criminally neglected the other, and gives it the same languorous, soft treatment, drawing her up and up and up and feeling her navel contract and jump beneath his forearm as she jolts and moves against him, her hips – god, her hips – searching for contact. Sam feels like he is underwater.

He wants to touch her – there – more than he wants to do anything else, so while he leaves one hand doing its blissful work, he presses his nose to her neck and then breathes her in, breathes her lovely, moving body in, lets his tongue peek out and taste her, salty and sweet and a little bit like apples, and then slides the other, non-occupied hand down, down to her knickers, and God, even saying the words in his head is a bit like taking drugs, he’s _moving his hand to her knickers_ , and he finds he doesn’t want to take them off, just yet. He uses one finger, traces lightly, up and down, over the fabric, pressing in a bit harder where he thinks he can feel her clit, and then coming up again to gentle for the rest of it, up and down, up and down, and he notes delightedly and somewhat drunkenly that he can _literally feel her getting wetter_ and she is – writhing, she is chanting, _please please please_ , and he, quite literally, wants nothing more to do exactly, exactly as she asks.

* * *

She – she expected him to be good. She did. But she expected him joyous and hard and quick, the way he spoke, the way he bounced from post to pillar, but this. This was. This was a sugary, black whirlpool of burning tar under the skin of her stomach. This was torturous, and slow, and he was looking at every part of her as if she was a science experiment, to touch and taste and note down the results and she felt like every part of her was tied together by very fraying string.

He took his hand, his wonderful, wonderful hand, away from its place drawing featherlight spirals around her left nipple, and took the other from its painting of long and gentle lines along her knickers, and she thought for a moment she might actually yowl, like an animal, from the constant, water-torture electricity of the pleasure, and then he tucked his fingers under the hips of her pants and tugged them down, over her knees, _torturously_ slow over her knees, and down around her ankles and the converse, which were too white and too bright in the room. He pushed her back further, further, and she fervently prayed the desk could take her weight because she was absolutely not getting off, and then he took the stupid, converse-covered feet, and he _pulled_ them apart, and God, the shoes felt obscene now, the only thing she had on, so bright against his hands. He kissed the ankles, ran a curious tongue over the bone.

She fought the urge to cover herself, her chest, her – her – she could barely say the word to herself. She felt wanton, filthy, in the best way, spread open with his bloody eyes looking up at her, then following her – from her eyes to her throat to her pinked nipples across her bellybutton down to _there_ like he was just _drinking her in_ and she couldn’t even stop to contemplate that because then he was kissing her, on her hip first, rising up like a wave to drag and gnaw a bit at the bone, and then at the soft, ticklish innards of her thighs, and then, without any preamble that she could ever prepare for, he was dragging a curious, warm tongue along her.

* * *

She tasted warm, if something could taste warm, and Sam felt dizzy as he licked up along her, toying gently at her entrance and then up, up to her clit. That seemed to be working for her, staying there, and though the idea of tongue-fucking her was mind-bending what seemed even better was the idea of her coming on his tongue, on his mouth, and if that meant he would have to worship (he didn’t have a better word for it, and was not unsatisfied with the choice) her clit – well. So be it.

Sam Yao was really a hard-done-by man.

He couldn’t even hold the thought in his mind for a second, even as a joke, because her hip was almost vibrating against the bones under his eyes as she tried hard not to move against him and she smelt _so good_ and he had his tongue _literally between her legs_ and really, how could he pretend that he didn’t feel absolutely the luckiest man on the earth, right now?

She was looking at him, from the desk.

‘You really don’t have to, if you don’t want to,’ she worried at her lip. ‘I’m sorry – if I pressured or-’

He pulled back a bit.

‘Five,’ he smiled against the inside of her thigh. ‘Shut up, okay, my lovely girl?’ He looked up to see the flush across her chest and her eyes widen and her tongue run languidly, drowsily, over her mouth. _I like to be told what to do. I like to be complimented._ ‘I want you to tell me what feels good, I want you to keep making those absolutely gorgeous sounds, and I want you to come for me, okay?’

She nodded mutely and Sam felt himself throb, a bit.

He lowered his mouth back to her and licked a broad, flat stripe across her clit. She felt satiny on his tongue, and smelt so good – not like honey, or fruit, or whatever the fuck, but so good nonetheless. She seemed to like that, those long, up-down licks, judging by the half-breathless little gasps, the shaking of her hips, and so he kept at it, and he felt her hands in his hair, pulling, a little bit, and then in the sheets, and then back on his hair, and then in the sheets, and her body was contorting, and oh God, was this not just wonderful?

‘Circles, circles,’ her voice was absolutely broken. ‘Draw circles with your tongue, oh, yes,’ He put one hand on the underside of her thigh, lifting it up to get better leverage, and let the other palm roughly at his cock through his jeans. One part of him felt entirely in control, like he was running a mission, like he was speaking through the comms channel, and the other part of him felt that he was literally going to actually die.

He followed her lead, using the point of his tongue to carve circles into her, over and over and over her clit, alternating it up with stripes when he felt that she wanted something to shock her. His jaw ached, and his face felt wet ( _fuck – can’t think about that_ , his hand got rougher on his cock) and he could happily do this for eight hours. He could feel her wind tighter and tighter, draw in on herself on the desk and he could feel her get wetter around his mouth and he could feel her pull closer to his tongue and he could feel her arching off the desk and he could feel everything and she snapped, like a rubber ball, shaking, her thighs rising involuntarily around Sam’s head and falling back down, her muscles moving fluidly in her stomach, her head back and the wetness of her mouth catching the moonlight in a slick rim of silver and Sam absolutely was not in control any more.

He pulled back after giving her a few, teasing licks, just to feel her shiver, and then he was pushing his jeans down, fast as they could go, and then his pants, too, kicking them off over his feet and gripping his cock, _at last._ He couldn’t help his head falling back, a million images of Five, Five’s nipple in his hand, pink and lovely, Five’s half-moans, Five’s eyes darkening when he called lovely girl, when he told her to shut up and to make her noises. Five’s voice telling him what she wanted, Five and the way she looked between her legs, Five’s wetness on his tongue, Five’s legs shaking around his head, and he held himself very, very tightly to stop from coming. Then he looked up, and Five was watching him, propped back up on her elbows, her mouth open and her eyes drinking in the sight of him, the blush of his chest and the sight of _his cock,_ and her tongue came out, subconsciously, to wet her mouth, and he had to grip himself a lot harder.

He moved over, nudged her legs back open, and moved forward carefully, leaning to give her a wet, deep, impossible kiss ( _don’t think about the fact she is tasting herself on you right now_ ) and she whispered –

‘I wanted to return the favour,’ and her eyes were a bit braver, ‘I wanted to suck you off. I want to taste you, I want you on my tongue, in my throat,’ and he gasps at that, at the way those plush lips look forming those words, red and soft and lovely.

‘Next time,’ he promises himself and her, because next time he will fuck her mouth for hours and hold her hair and move her head along his length and she will swirl her lovely tongue around the head of his cock and along the slit and tears will pearl up as she takes him all, all to the back of her throat, and he can see it, he can _see_ how lovely she will lock on her knees. ‘Right now, I need to fuck you. I need – I want you to feel it, I want to be in you, I want you,’ he is almost chanting and then she is letting her knees fall back even wider, if that is possible, and she is linking her arms behind his neck and kissing him with that hot, perfect mouth, and he thinks somewhat hysterically that he is about to fuck her _on his comms desk_ and then he is sliding into her and he just. He might die.

‘Oh, oh my god,’ she gasps, and Sam agrees.

She is so, so hot around him, soft and tight around him, and he has to slow himself to a halt otherwise it will be over there, right there. He feels her breathing around him and he thinks he might die.

‘Please, please – move – move, please,’ and he smooths her curls back, her wrecked, sweaty curls, as if she’s been running.

‘Yeah, my good girl, I’m moving, I’m going to move for you,’ _and for me_. The pace he sets is slow, every drag electric, up his spine and through his eye sockets. She rocks her hips up, meeting him, and he keeps it gruelling, chocolatey and slow, curving his tailbone every time, fucking up into her, watching her absolutely fall apart before him and he thinks this might be like meeting God. And then she does something – pulls her stomach up and _tightens_ and he chokes out a breath, feeling the warmth along every ridge of his body, and before he can stop himself he jars against her, harder, faster, than he meant to. And once he does this once, he can’t stop – his hips become a thing he does not control, thrusting, seeking the slide and hug of her body, her wetness, her sweet, hungry gasping.

He lowers his forehead and braces his arms either side of her, and there is only a centimetre of space between their faces and he can feel her breathing, her eyes completely melted over and her cheeks a delicious pink and he forces out a voice that comes out barely more coherent than he’s feeling.

‘Come on, my girl, my girl, good girl, my girl, come for me, I can see you’re there, God, come on, come for me,’ and that does it, she is stuttering and slipping against him and becoming unbearably, unbearably tight, and Sam thinks for a minute that he can fuck her through it, that he can try for number three, he really does, but then she is saying _you’re mine you’re mine you’re mine_ and he realises it is true, that he is hers and she is his, and that combined with the fact that she is molten and warm and literally made for his cock, sends him falling, _railing_ over the edge, his thrusts jagged and out of time, a wrecked _agh_ that he doesn’t even recognise as belonging to him tearing from his throat, until he collapses, utterly, utterly spent, on top of her.

They stay like that, soft, warm, her breathing as luscious as a lullaby, and he is just content to feel her skin beneath him after spending every waking moment wondering what this would be like, to hold her like this. His body gives up before he does, though, and he slips out of her and stands back, his legs half-buckled. She looks dizzy when she stands up, her face beautiful and so, so blissed, her knees knocking.

‘Bed, please,’ he half-begs, smiling at her, not resisting the urge to tuck a thumb under her jaw and tilt her face up to meet his, kissing her soundly, smiling wider when she kisses back, moving his mouth and head, those little, taking movements.

‘I’m not just a taker, a shiverer-apart,’ She tells him, as they quickly clean up and squash onto Sam’s bed (his sofa, really, but – beggars can’t be choosers in the apocalypse). Her arse is soft and lovely against his hips and he feels a stir of interest. Tomorrow. She turns back to face him, her arms tucked up against his chest. ‘I want to – touch you, more. Next time.’ She raises an eyebrow, an imperceptible challenge.

‘Yes please,’ He says, waggling his eyebrows and leering at her. ‘How does 6am tomorrow work for you?’

She relaxes and laughs against him, and he isn’t sure who falls asleep first, but he can smell her, and her apple-faint skin, and she is all warm, smooth body and curly hair, and he thinks that this, really, is bloody brilliant.

* * *

Maxine steps back from her raggedly-made sign, hands on her hips, cocking her head in appraisal. She smiles and turns around, sending a thumbs up at Simon and Eugene, laughing. They disperse quickly, before Janine can see and give them a right telling off.

It sways gently in the morning breeze, the wind catching the edge of the paper and sending it back and for against the wood of the comms door.

**COME BACK LATER. HIGHLY-STRUNG COMMS OPERATOR AND TIGHTLY-WOUND RUNNER RELIEVING SOME TENSION IN THE WIRES.**


End file.
